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The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921. From the Russian Empire to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Imperial Russia, 1815-1915. Russian Krestyanin (Peasant). 19 th Century Russia. 1861 Abolition of Serfdom by Tsar Alexander II
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The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 From the Russian Empire to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
19th Century Russia • 1861 Abolition of Serfdom by Tsar Alexander II • Rapid industrialization after 1880 but an overwhelming rural society (peasants 90%) • Urban working class (2.3 million in 1900) concentrated in large cities. • The “intelligentsia”: well educated nobles and middle class who desire reform or revolution • The Narodniks:”to the people” populist movement • Russian Social Democratic Labor party (Marxist)
The Failed Revolution of 1905 • Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) fought over imperialist aims in Korea and Manchuria • Japan, victorious in land and naval war, emerges as a great world power. • . ”Bloody Sunday” massacre. Rioting in St. Petersburg and Moscow; general strike; mutiny on the battleship Potemkin; worker’s soviets. • Army puts down uprising • Tsar Nicholas II establishes Duma (parliament), but later takes away any real power
The February Revolution 1917 • 1914-1917 Disastrous military defeats • Riots and demonstrations in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) caused by shortages of bread and coal. • Soldiers join demonstrations • Tsarist government collapses; Nicholas II abdicates throne • Provisional Government established pending nationwide elections. • Rival government: Petrograd Council of Workers and Soldiers Deputies (Petrograd Soviet)
VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN 1870-1924 • Older brother, Alexander, executed for attempt to assassinate Tsar, 1887 • Exiled to Siberia, then escapes to Europe in 1896 • Leader of Bolshevik faction of RSDP in 1903 • Revises ideas of Karl Marx to fit Russian conditions • Since Russians had no political experience, they need disciplined party cadre to educate and lead them • Imperialism, the highest Stage of Capitalism • Denounces War as imperialist. • In Zurich at time of February revolution. Germans arrange for his transport back to Russia in a sealed train car. • Lenin denounces Provisional Government and calls for revolution.
Lenin: “What is to be Done”1902 • The active and widespread participation of the masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a "dozen" experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the police, will centralise all the secret side of the work-prepare leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and to each educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views, but I shall reply to this altogether unintelligent objection later on.) The centralisation of the more secret functions in an organisation of revolutionaries will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and the quality of the activity of a large number of other organisations intended for wide membership and which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible, for example, trade unions, workers' circles for self-education and the reading of illegal literature, and socialist and also democratic circles for all other sections of the population. etc, etc We must have as large a number as possible of such organisations having the widest possible variety of functions, but it is absurd and dangerous to confuse those with organisations of revolutionaries, to erase the line of demarcation between them, to dim still more the masses already incredibly hazy appreciation of the fact that in order to "serve" the mass movement we must have people who will devote themselves exclusively to Social Democratic activities, and that such people must train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries. Aye, this appreciation has become incredibly dim. The most grievous sin we have committed in regard to organisation is that by our primitiveness we have lowered the prestige o revolutionaries in Russia. A man who is weak and vacillating on theoretical questions, who has a narrow outlook who makes excuses for his own slackness on the ground that the masses are awakening spontaneously; who resembles a trade union secretary more than a people's tribune, who is unable to conceive of a broad and bold plan, who is incapable of inspiring even his opponents with respect for himself, and who is inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional art-the art of combating the political police-such a man is not a revolutionary but a wretched amateur! Let no active worker take offense at these frank remarks, for as far as insufficient training is concerned, I apply them first and foremost to myself. I used to work in a circle that set itself great and allembracing tasks; and every member of that circle suffered to the point of torture from the realisation that we were proving ourselves to be amateurs at a moment in history when we might have been able to say, paraphrasing a wellknown epigram: "Give us an organisation of revolutionaries, and we shall overturn the whole of Russia!"From, V.I. Lenin: "What is to Be Done?", Lenin: Collected Works Vol V, pp. 375-76, 451-53, 464-67
The October Revolution • Bolsheviks gain majority in Petrograd and Moscow Soviets in September • Lenin calls for a seizure of power • October: Soldiers from Petrograd garrison, sailors from Kronstadt and Bolshevik Red Guards storm the Winter Palace and arrest members of Provisional Government. • November 9, 1917: New government: Council of People’s Commissars: Lenin is chairman; Leon Trotsky, commissar of foreign affairs; Josef Stalin, Commissar of Minorities
WAR COMMUNISM • December 1917: Armistice with Germany • March 3, 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia loses one fourth of land and population (Ukraine, Poland, Finland and Baltic states). • Peasants allowed to seize landlord’s lands • Control of factories given to worker’s committees • Church property confiscated • Opposition parties suppressed • Industry nationalized • Secret Police to war on internal enemies: the Cheka
